MyPhone My36 Smartphone Review

The MyPhone My36 comes in a simple white box printed with its specs, features and freebies. A sticker states that it has free internet access of 100MB each month for one year using a Globe or TM SIM card.

A free leather watch is also included in a separate package. It symbolizes the company’s commemoration of 8 years of operation here in the Philippines.

Right off the bat, the MyPhone My36 looks sleek and premium. It’s thin, has a screen with slightly curved edges, metallic band around its sides and a back cover with leather like material.

It’s comfortable to hold and doesn’t slip. The volume and power buttons are all located in the right side and are tactile enough.

The back cover can be removed to access the two micro-SIM card slots and one micro-SD card slot. The battery is protected by a vinyl sticker with the warning, “Do not disassemble the battery.”

MyPhone My36 with its back cover removed.

However, there’s a creaky noise when the back cover is pressed. The battery seems smaller than its intended space resulting in a hollow space between it and the back cover.

The phone’s chin is also a bit too large given that it uses on-screen buttons. It measures 17 mm while the side bezels are 4 mm.

The display of the MyPhone My36 stands out among its features. It measures 5.2 inches and has a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels or Full HD. This means it packs a pixel density of 424 ppi making texts, icons and other graphics ultra-sharp.

I had to check to check the company’s official website for the technology used for the smartphone’s display. It’s an IPS LCD panel but looks like AMOLED with its deep blacks and vivid colors. Brightness is also sufficient even under direct sunlight.

It can detect up to five (5) touch inputs at the same time with no bugs. It’s soft touch and swiping from the curved edges is smooth.

The MyPhone My36 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box. MyPhone has added software features including a custom launcher called My Launcher. It doesn’t have an app drawer and lays icons and widgets together on the homescreens. The icons are a bit simplistic that some users might find them boring.

There are several motion and gesture controls such as double tap to wake and turn off the display, pocket mode, flip to snooze and drawing letters to launch the music player, camera or flashlight.

As usual, MyPhone’s Pinoy app (no content) is pre-loaded as well as several other apps. The phone plays prayers at 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock. This can be disabled though.

Just like most top of the line local smartphones, the MyPhone My36 uses the MediaTek MT6753 System on Chip (SoC). There’s a 1.3GHz octa core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, a Mali-T720 MP3 graphics processor @ 700MHz and 3GB of RAM.

As expected, it performs smoothly in through casual apps and resource intensive games. Launching Facebook, Google Chrome, Instagram and Quora consecutively doesn’t affect the phone’s smoothness. It can also run Asphalt Nitro, Dead Trigger, Bike Unchained, Clash of Clans and Temple Run 2 without any hiccups.

Playing games can increase the phone’s temperature slightly at around 40°C based on the battery temperature. This often happen when the ambient temperature is also high such as at noon.

I’m impressed with the cameras of the MyPhone My36 – both the rear and front. Its 13 Megapixel rear camera has a Samsung image sensor. It produces good quality pictures and videos as long as the phone is kept steady. It can also focus on subjects quickly since it has Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) unless the LED flash is used.

The one on the front is a 5 Megapixel unit with its own LED flash. It’s great for taking selfies during the day as well as at night with its LED flash. It’s my smartphone of choice when I know selfies will be taken.

Here are some sample pictures:

MyPhone My36 sample picture (macro shot).

MyPhone My36 sample picture (auto).

MyPhone My36 sample picture (HDR).

Unlike the MyPhone My35, the MyPhone My36 doesn’t have High Fidelity (Hi-Fi) audio. Nevertheless, it also has the former’s Sound Enhancement in the settings which slightly improves the sound quality.

Listening to music using earphones is alright. The default Music app even has some artistic flourishes. However, it lacks some basic functions such as Shuffle Play. You can, of course, install Spotify or Google Play Music.

The loudspeaker isn’t up to my expectations though. It’s small and can be muffled easily by one finger or by the table top when laid down.

Thankfully, these issues are offset by watching movies and TV shows such as The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow on the glorious 5.2-inch full HD display with 2.5D arc.

It’s worth noting that the MyPhone My36 has a Gyroscope, Magnetometer (compass) and Wireless Display support. These are sensors that several readers always ask about.

It also has an LED notification light on the top left of the front panel. It can only display two colors though – red and green.

The MyPhone My36 is indeed, a great smartphone given its ₱6,999.00 official price. It looks classy, performs smoothly, equipped with good cameras and can last long enough.

Its main issue is choppy cellular data connectivity that can be fixed with a software update. If you mostly use Wi-Fi for an internet connection, this should not be a problem.

Pinoy Techno Guide is one of the top tech blogs in the Philippines. It was founded on April 2012 with the mission to provide helpful information about the latest technolody news, specs & reviews of gadgets such as smartphones, step-by-step tech guides and even pricelists. Read more →